Focus
by xXxNeonSoundxXx
Summary: He could hear them all loud and clear, the sound of the mix a bit jarring but not unexpected. Each step closer to the looming building had them in a crescendo until, eventually, he was inside and the thoughts blended, fused, clashed together in a near deafening cacophony. [Damien x Reader]


The first thing to hit him was the cool blast of air conditioning that welcomed all patrons to the indoor mall. It sent a welcoming chill across his skin, raising up pinpricks of flesh in response. The pleasant temperature of the building was a stark contrast to the rolling heat outside and he was almost saddened by the fact that they'd eventually need to leave for the day.

The second thing to hit him was his very own excitement. It had been quite a while since he'd been out to explore the city of Chicago and even longer since he'd had enough money to actually shop at his leisure. He'd definitely have to thank [Name] for inviting him out on her little excursion; perhaps he'd be able to find a gift somewhere?

The third, and probably hardest, thing to hit him were the thoughts. [Name]'s, consumers, vendors, people walking past, people sitting still, the young, the old, even his own thoughts all intermingled in his mind. He could hear them all loud and clear, the sound of the mix a bit jarring but not unexpected. After all, from the moment he had stepped out of the car he could hear them. Each step closer to the looming building had them in a crescendo until, eventually, he was inside and the thoughts blended, fused, clashed together in a near deafening cacophony.

"Damien?"

[Name]'s voice had been soft compared to the roaring thoughts invading his mind and the incubus had to think hard about whether or not she had actually verbally spoken his name. Turning his attention toward her, he noticed her worried gaze before it vanished in the brief second it took for him to blink. In the back of his mind, he could barely pick out her thoughts from the rest.

 _It's more crowded than usual today. Will he be okay? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here. It's not too late to go home I suppose._

Her thoughts ran a mile a minute, only stopping when Damien let out a soft chuckle.

"I'll be fine," he insisted, answering her unspoken question with a smile. Nodding toward the inside of the building, he added. "Where is it we were supposed to visit first?"

He could still hear the doubt in her thoughts and the furrow in her brows only accented her worry, but a moment later she was returning his smile with her own cautious one. She'd had their shopping trip planned out since the night before, making a detailed route that had them walking past all the different stores they were interested in; he'd be damned if he let this setback—one he was too used to by now—ruin everything.

He was sure the resolve in his eyes was visible and it didn't take long before [Name] relented and led Damien through the crowds of people to their first destination. The walk there was grueling in itself and there were multiple occasions where he accidently bumped shoulders with a stranger, their thoughts suddenly sparking louder than the others around. Most of the time it was an unspoken apology he managed to hear, but every so often a rude phrase or disgruntled complaint would ring through his mind. Those were the worst; not because they echoed in his mind, but because he couldn't tell if it was the person still thinking it or if he was the one dwelling on it for too long.

[Name] had eventually slowed to a stop, facing in the direction of their first destination as she looked up at the decorative placard that held the store's name. Looking up at it as well, Damien noticed the elaborate script that it was written in. The curved letters and curled penmanship wasn't something he was used to seeing yet, so he was having a hard time deciphering what the store was called. As he was scrutinizing the name, Damien barely caught the end of a sentence he hadn't even realized [Name] had started.

"...pick something out that looks interesting." When his eyes, riddled with confusion due to not hearing the first half of her sentence, met hers, [Name] laughed before elaborating. "It's a bookstore, Damien. Obviously!"

As she gestured grandly toward the display window, his gaze followed. Through it, he could see stacks upon stacks of literature and, though he couldn't tell at a glance just what types of books they had, he was sure he would be able to come across every genre ever known. There were already people inside, some browsing through the many columns of books, others sitting on the floor and flipping through ones they found interesting, and still more lining up at registers to bring home the pieces they had picked out. He could hear all of their thoughts at different volumes; they were all happy.

"Did you need something here?" He asked, following along as [Name] opened the heavy double doors leading into the store. He thought back to the many massive books with technical terms she studied from, wondering if they were there to collect another one of those.

She flashed him a smile and in that instant he could already tell she knew he hadn't been listening earlier when his mind was distracted by other thoughts. Instead of pointing it out though, [Name] let out a short laugh before repeating herself.

"I thought it'd be nice if you picked out a book of your own instead of always sticking to the ones in the library at home," she explained, stopping short in front of a few bookshelves. "Find something that interests you. It'll be my treat." Damien wanted to say that the books back home were enough—that she didn't need to go so far as buying him a new one—but she was already backing away from him as she said, "Reading the titles they have to offer will be good practice. Just look around for a bit and come find me after you've picked one out."

And with that, [Name] disappeared behind a different shelf, her thoughts mingling with the rest of the customers' and fading into the background the farther she walked away. The chorus of whispers, shouts, mutterings, and clamors, both in his mind and all around him, drowned her out until she was just another passing murmur. Soon, Damien couldn't even tell where her thoughts ended and another person's began; had she left the store completely?

Deciding that it would do him no good to simply stand there and wait for her return, Damien took [Name]'s directions to heart and walked up to the shelf nearest him. There were many different books; some colorful, some dull, some shiny, some matte, some thick, tall, wide, long, flimsy, thin. All with overwhelmingly difficult titles to decipher. Damien tried his best to sound out the words in his mind, a few syllables slipping past his lips in a low whisper, and he was pleasantly surprised when most of them made sense individually. But still, stringing them together into a coherent phrase proved to be more than difficult; especially when an entire store full of people were thinking about their own books in hand, jumbling up the words in his mind.

Trying not to feel discouraged, he picked up the first book his fingers danced across, pulling it from the shelf so he could examine it more closely. It was the decorative picture on the front and thin script displaying its title that had first drawn his eye to it, despite the fact he had heard on multiple occasions to 'never judge a book by its cover'. Flipping it over, Damien eyed the short blurb that would give a brief summary of its contents, determined to find out what this particular book was about.

"...tale of two low-nelly… two lonely adolesk… adoleskents?" Damien already had the sneaking suspicion that this was a difficult book and the presence of words he'd never encountered before solidified that assumption. "...the tale of two lonely adoleskents will untangle the mystery… Wait."

Pausing for a moment, Damien looked away from the book in his hands. His eyes scanned his immediate surroundings until they landed on a single person across the room; a woman holding up her own book as she read its blurb silently to herself. _...she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death…_ His brows furrowed, realizing that he'd let her thoughts mingle with his own while he tried to sound out the sentences. It was one thing to have to read on his own, surrounded by silence in the mansion's library, but it was an entirely new and frustrating experience trying to read with other people in his immediate vicinity.

Clutching the book close to his chest, Damien walked away from the shelf where he had picked it up, looking for a less populated area. He glanced down every pathway, looked between every bookshelf, searched every hall, but the further into the store he walked, the more people he encountered. He was beginning to feel crowded, the mass of strangers moving inward, outward, forward, backward, weaving their way in front of and behind him were beginning to make him dizzy. If that wasn't enough, the onslaught of foreign thoughts were beginning to pound into his head, begging for attention.

 _Where is that book? I know I saw it here somewhere…_

 _I can't deal with this right now. Maybe I can push the work on to someone else…_

 _Where did they go? My friends couldn't have left already…_

The voices, screaming louder in his mind with every passing second, were beginning to become indistinguishable from the actual words being spoken aloud. Swiveling his head to and fro, Damien had to often look closely to see if anyone was actually speaking and if they were, was it to him? Someone else? Themself? It was becoming hard to determine where one thought began and another ended, the flurry of words meshing together into a long run-on sentence; incomprehensible, incoherent, and distressingly loud. He needed to get out of the store. He needed to leave.

 _This is way too much for a book!_

 _I can't believe this place won't buy back my textbook…_

 _What's wrong with that guy?_

So caught up in thoughts that shouldn't even be heard, Damien hadn't even realized he'd stopped walking, standing stalk still in the middle of the pathway. He could feel his hands shaking, his head shaking, his breath shaking, everything shaking as he tried to get a grip on what was happening; tried to push out everything so he could think for himself. It was hard and he had to set down his book in favor for pressing the back of his fist to his eyes, squeezing them shut as he tried to concentrate on the hiss of his own breathing. The air came out in wisps and he was so sure his throat was tightening up, causing the awful wheezing he was hearing; he'd never felt so claustrophobic in his life, drowning in the thoughts of strangers.

A gentle grip, one he hadn't been expecting, latched onto his hand that wasn't blocking his eyes. It was firm and only took a second of tugging for Damien to follow willingly, being led God knows where as he refused to look at anyone else in the store. He didn't need to see them to know they were staring.

 _He looks so distressed. I wonder what's wrong…_

 _They're speeding out of the store so fast. I wonder if anything bad happened…_

 _Poor guy. I wonder if he's alright..._

He couldn't hear her—of course, because she wasn't speaking—but Damien couldn't even hear [Name]'s thoughts despite the fact she was holding his hand. Too many people, nosy, rude, inconsiderate people who couldn't mind their own business, were staring at them, their thoughts focused all on him, all on what was happening. Their inner voices amplified; it was hard not to hear their thoughts when they were all about him, all about how pathetic he looked. If he grit his teeth hard enough, really ground them against each other, he could almost block out their thoughts with the sound of his own teeth grating.

"Hey."

He wasn't sure whether the single word had been spoken or thought—too many things were running into each other—but he did know that it had come from [Name]. She sounded stern, nothing like the soft spoken, wary girl who had led him into the store initially. In that moment she seemed strong, so much stronger than he ever could be, and he felt a surge of envy course through him.

When had they stopped moving? When had they walked out of the store and around the corner? Damien wasn't sure; he hadn't been paying attention. He was still focused on blocking everyone's thoughts out, doing his best to ignore everyone but himself. He barely even noticed when [Name] placed both her hands on either side of his face. He didn't even realize she was pulling him down until his forehead knocked rather painfully against hers.

 _"Focus on me."_

With her face so close to his, her forehead brushing up against his own, [Name]'s thoughts were impossibly loud, nearly deafening. The words were only accentuated with her voice, the phrase spilling out of her mouth the exact moment they crossed her mind. For a second it was all Damien could hear, the three words echoing in his mind, ringing over and over like the aftereffects of an explosion. He could practically feel them settling into the back of his brain and, even as all the other noise around him began to gradually fade back in, they were still there as a constant reminder.

"Ignore everyone else. Find my thoughts and zero in on them. Just..." [Name] hesitated, still not sure if Damien could actually hear what she was saying, what she was thinking. "Focus."

It was all easier said than done, but after a few minutes of simply breathing, simply existing, Damien returned [Name]'s worried gaze with his own soft expression. The smile he had, though small, was genuine as he silently thanked her. His hands found hers, still resting on either side of his face, and he brought them down so he could comfortably hold them. With his forehead still pressed against hers, he let out a sigh, his breath fanning against her face. He could hear her mind at the forefront of everything, the words tumbling and repeating like a mantra.

 _Focus. Focus. Focus on me._

"Thank you." With those words, he saw her visibly relax, the worry in her eyes no longer overwhelming. And when he finally pulled away from her, straightening himself up, that worry was completely overtaken by curiosity. "Come on; let's go back inside."

"Are you sure?" The hesitation in [Name]'s voice was obvious and he could already hear the whispered concern in her head.

"Of course." Still holding on to her hands, Damien began walking back toward the bookstore. "After all, I was promised a new book. And I think I've found one I'm interested in."

His smile was convincing, causing [Name] to flash him one of her own. As they walked back hand in hand, he could still hear everyone's thought—that would always be a constant in his life that would never change—but her words had given him something to hold on to. Something he could fall back on if too many voices began to invade his mind all at once.

She gave him his focus.


End file.
